


Some Sunny Day

by lamardeuse



Series: Getting To Know You [19]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-05
Updated: 2010-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:55:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series to accompany Season Two of SGA. Part Nineteen: Allies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Sunny Day

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: rating refers to overall series rating. Individual parts may carry a lower rating.

Rodney’s maternal grandmother had been a war bride, an Englishwoman who met his grandfather in 1943 when he was flying Lancasters over Germany, not as dashing an occupation as a Spitfire pilot but still sufficiently glamorous to catch her attention.  He’d already been decorated by then and he was tall and handsome and had a cocky smile that was designed to break hearts.  She was small and mercurial, a buzz bomb with bright red hair and a yearning for excitement that was nearly satisfied by the biggest war the world had ever seen.

Then he married her and took her home to Thunder Bay where she spent the next thirty years in a tract house going slowly crazy from changing diapers and organizing Tupperware parties and slogging through yet another goddamned winter.  By the time Rodney was fifteen she was in a home, where she’d sit in a corner singing to herself, old songs no one heard any more outside of the Legion.  He tried picking them out from memory on the piano once, but his mother had screeched at him to stop, and he’d never played them again.

A week before the Wraith ship arrived, some moron had gotten the bonehead idea to throw a party, because they had various evacuation plans in place and no one was sure whether they’d all be together in a week’s time.  There had been no alcohol (Elizabeth’s bonehead idea, he was sure), just lots of hugs and laughter and sappy displays of sentimentality that made him want to flee screaming.  But the senior staff were expected to be there, and it was impressed upon him that it was his solemn duty to put on his best stiff upper lip impersonation and put on a show for the troops.

And then someone had started singing some of the old songs his grandmother had always sung to herself: _White Cliffs of Dover_ and _Lilli Marlene_ and _It’s a Long Way to Tipperary_, and soon the whole crowd had picked up the lyrics and was singing along and by the time they got to _We’ll Meet Again_ there were tears streaming down Rodney’s face, damn it to hell.

_We'll meet again_   
_Don't know where_   
_Don't know when_   
_But I know we'll meet again some sunny day_   
__   
_Keep smilin' through_   
_Just like you always do_   
_Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away_   
__   
_So will you please say hello_   
_To the folks that I know_   
_Tell them I won't be long_   
_They'll be happy to know_   
_That as you saw me go_   
_I was singing this song_   
__   
_We'll meet again_   
_Don't know where_   
_Don't know when_   
_But I know we'll meet again some sunny day_

When the song finally died away, everyone seemed to suddenly remember something pressing they had to do, and within ten minutes the mess hall was deserted except for the misty-eyed cleaning staff. 

Rodney went looking for John and found him standing on the balcony, fingers wrapped around the railing as though he’d fly away if he didn’t anchor himself to earth.

_Why don’t you?_ Rodney wanted to say.  _Goddammit, why do you stay? _

He pried John’s fingers from the railing and took his face between his hands and kissed him, and when they parted John’s head turned toward the wall of windows behind them.  When Rodney followed suit, he saw one of the cleaners trying very hard not to look like she’d been watching them, her face bright red and her lower lip caught between her teeth.

Rodney let go of him quickly, but John shook his head sharply and leaned in again.  “Fuck it,” he murmured into Rodney’s startled mouth, kissing him with a slow, unhurried deliberation that made Rodney grip his shoulders and hang on, holding him down, holding him fast.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
John hated waiting almost as much as he hated the Wraith.  And waiting for the Wraith?   About as far from chocolate and peanut butter as sardines dipped in cow shit.

Rodney had been spending most of his time on the _Orion_, and whenever John’s duties permitted he cooked up an excuse to ‘check on Rodney’s progress,’ which of course was top secret code for ‘fuck Rodney’s brains out.’  He’d discovered that when you were sharing a spaceship designed for six hundred people with a crew of six dozen, there were a lot of places to be alone.

Of course, the only thing top secret about them by now was probably the brand of condoms they used, although John wasn’t even too sure that piece of intel hadn’t made the rounds, too.  Luckily, people were too busy trying to come up with ways to avoid dying horribly to care about what their respective military and scientific team leaders did in their small amount of down time.  And if they did care about it, they didn’t tell him, and he didn’t ask. 

Once or twice all they did was fall into bed together and sleep, because John had spent twelve hours training the FNGs in Wraith combat tactics and another four hours in the puddlejumper getting to Rodney, and Rodney had been running on coffee and a bad mood for the last three days trying to cobble the shields together with spit and baling wire.  But that was okay too, because John had never experienced this sort of calm-before-the-storm quiet with anyone else, and it made him fierce and watchful, lying here with Rodney warm and solid in his arms, snoring softly, nose mashed into his shoulder.

He felt like he was hurtling toward something again, but this time he didn’t feel alone, couldn’t convince himself that no one really cared.  He knew better.

He also knew that if their only possible Hail Mary this time was a suicide mission, Rodney was going to be seriously pissed off at him.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
The night the Wraith arrived on Atlantis, they fucked with an intensity that frightened both of them.  When Rodney’s heart had slowed to a fast gallop, he asked, “Do you ever think about what you would have done in the war?”

John propped himself up on an elbow and peered at him in the dim light.  “The war?”

Rodney flapped a hand.  “Oh, yes, I forgot, there have been so many wars for you people.  I mean World War Two.  What do you think you might have done if you’d been alive then?”

John paused, and Rodney’s heart raced again, because God, he knew what John had thought of first.

Finally, he shrugged.  “Probably  would’ve been a pilot then too, I guess.”

“Fighters or bombers?”

“Wouldn’t matter.  I like Lightnings and Mustangs and I like Forts and Liberators.  They’re all cool.”  He reached out and stroked a hand through Rodney’s hair.  “What’s this all about?”

Rodney shook his head, making John’s fingertips stutter against his scalp.  “Nothing.  I just – I was thinking about how things were – easier then.  Well, maybe not easier,” he added at John’s puzzled look, “but – simpler.  More straightforward.”

“You think the Nazis were simpler than space vampires?” John asked, the faint curve of a smile lifting one corner of his mouth.

“I wasn’t talking about them,” Rodney murmured, closing his eyes.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
John wasn’t a politician, but he couldn’t help but notice that whenever they tried to play politics, they seemed to come out of it having their asses handed to him.  That wasn’t necessarily a reflection on Elizabeth’s diplomatic skills; it might simply mean that the average denizen of the Pegasus galaxy was more devious than the average brilliant Earth negotiator, which, well…

Let’s face it, they were so screwed.

Watching the queen suck the life out of one of her gentleman friends brought it home to him.  It reminded him of watching Sumner wither before his eyes, and made him relive the time he’d come very, very close to being on the receiving end of that fatal caress.  They were playing so far out of their league they couldn’t even decipher the scoreboard, and the chances of their making it to the final whistle were seeming slimmer and slimmer.  John always did his best to be the eternal optimist – after all, it didn’t help anyone to run around yelling about how screwed they were.  And even if he’d wanted to, that job had already been taken.

Although to tell the truth, John had had a hard time reading Rodney lately; he was always running back and forth between lab and conference room and Wraith ship (Jesus), like a stray cannonball rolling around on the fog-shrouded gun deck of the _Victory_.  John caught up with him about once every twelve hours or so: mornings and evenings.  In the mornings, John would watch Rodney’s hands swoop and dart as he described his latest discoveries about Wraith technology and his mouth gulp down about half a gallon of coffee. 

In the evenings, he’d feel Rodney’s hands and mouth on him, restless and hungry, and he’d lie back and let himself be devoured, because he didn’t know how much longer he could have this.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Even after being reminded time and time again that his cunning plans didn’t always work, Rodney was still capable of being swept away by the belief in his own infallibility, to the point where he had not even bothered to consider that his latest plan might fall flat.

At least that’s what he told himself as he lay in the cocoon, because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate. 

Oh, right, he remembered.  He’d just passed ‘too horrible to contemplate.’

“McKay.  McKay.”

“_Rodney_.”

Rodney turned to see Ronon staring at him.  A gulping, hysterical sound –  probably the same one that had gotten Ronon’s attention in the first place –  burst from his throat. 

“Calm down,” Ronon said evenly.  “We’re not dead yet.”

Rodney thought of the images of Sateda sent back through the MALP’s cameras, pictured Earth lying in ruins, shattered, the scream of darts over Paris and New York and Thunder Bay, and nothing to stop them.  Dear God, Rodney had just _executed _his entire planet.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Ronon was saying.  “They’re going to come for us.”

And Rodney started laughing again, because that was the funniest damned thing he’d ever heard, though he couldn’t quite say why.  He thought of his grandmother, sitting in a corner singing to herself, thirty years of disappointment and regret gnawing at her mind, and he wondered if they’d keep him alive, let him wander around the blasted and deserted shells of what had once been schools and churches and tract houses until he lost what was left of his sanity. 

For him, at least, it wouldn’t take anything like thirty years.

He wasn’t aware that he’d started singing, only knew his throat was sore by the time the Wraith strode up to him and aimed a stunner at his chest.

“You don’t like that one?” Rodney yelled at him, straining against the strands that held him fast.  “How about _Bless ‘Em All_?  _Der Fuhrer’s Face_?  _Roll Out the Barrel_?  C’mon, make a request, I got a million of ‘em!  Come _on_!”

The Wraith pulled the trigger, and Rodney had time to think _Everybody’s a critic_ before the world disappeared.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Rodney and John’s plan went off without a hitch.  John matched speed and course with the Wraith hive, then nudged the F-302 into position right in her blind spot.  It was a little like a butterfly riding the slipstream of a B-52, but he could handle it.  Piece of cake. Now, all he had to do was figure out what the hell to do next.

Gaze on the sinister lines of the ship filling his canopy, John thought,_ Not so fast, Rodney.  It's my turn_.

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics and music to "We'll Meet Again" by Ross Parker &amp; Hughie Charles. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> First published March 2006.


End file.
